Thursday, July 22, 2010

Thursday blog

Padres are searching for a hitter adept at reaching base against right-handers. Am told the team views its .316 OBP vs. righties as a significant issue. Wrote about it in FanHouse today. Not the only species on the wish list.

We hear a lot about how great the Padres' pitching is and how bad the offense is. I think both get overstated pretty much every year. Obviously Petco Park and the NL favor pitchers. While the Padres don't have an intimidating offense, it may not be as bad as commonly thought. According to baseball-reference.com, the Padres have a ballpark-adjusted on-base and slugging percentage of 100, tied with the Braves. Only four other NL clubs have a better OPS+: Brewers, Cardinals, Reds and Dodgers. It's not a tell-all statistic. Nor is it a statistic without flaw. But it's colorful paint for the picture.

To my eyes, the caliber of hitting throughout the NL is down. Some of that likely has to do with the pitching, which is my final blinding insight of this post.